Abit iX38 QuadGT - Living Review.

[Clunk]

I think the steering wheel is to help it to drive you mad.

/gets coat.

[supershanks]

I think the steering wheel is to help it to drive you mad.

You don't need a steerring wheel to do that.

[glowball]

I think 'I' must be mad, every few hours I do my rounds of all the Abit IX-38 forum threads hoping to find some more information about the board, what it's capable of and what problems people are finding with it.
It's all Abit Silent, OTES... Over-rated, Troublesome, Expensive, Stuff.
Have you guys given up?

[Clunk]

I have given up, and tomorrow, I am sending it back, and here's why;

The BIOS is unforgivable, the board should never have been released in that state, and there are many problems with it, not just the freezing issue.

The heat from the PWMs when using an overvolted quad is ridiculous, and something that I would think that a lot of people do not want, or need in their case. Mine was easily giving off 5x80c during priming with just under 1.5 volts, with a 92mm fan blowing directly on the PWM heatsink (something which couldnt be done while the board was in a case). I have seen the PWMs hit 112c on occasion as well, which is quite frankly, ridiculous.

Abit fanatics would argue that the digital PWMs are rated for much higher temps, so everything is fine and dandy, but that isnt the case, the PWMs might be fine, but the heat still has to go somewhere. Asus, seemed to have perfected the PWM area on the Maximus, and that ran almost cool to the touch, even with silly voltage.

Stability - the board just isnt stable. Sure, you can crank up the voltage to achieve stability, but why would anyone want to be hitting 1.55v+ for 3.6Ghz, when you know that your CPU will do it in a *decent* board at 1.4v or less? Add the heat from your highly overvolted CPU, to the 5x white hot PWMs and you have yourself a replacement for your central heating boiler.

The bundle - The bundle is a bit of a sore point. The items that come with this board, are reminiscent of what you would get with something like a sub 50.00 board.

It doesnt like having a keyboard attached, or a USB stick - great news for people with a keyboard

Looks like it came shipped with a beta BIOS, which happens to be the latest BIOS on the Abit FTP as well.

I really wanted to like this board, and I did for a couple of hours, but the problems outweigh any benefits, by a long margin, and as a result, it is a pig to use.

I have also been advised that its usually like this when Abit launch a motheboard, and not to expect BIOS releases to be flooding onto the FTP for at least a few weeks. If that is the case, then, by the time that the board is useable, we will probably have a new chipset and new boards on the market.

Hope that helps

[D.M]

I'm really sorry to hear that clunk

What are you going to go for now?

Was this board just for testing or was it for your main rig?

I am seriously now considering the Gigabyte that supershanks has, I know its colour scheme is a 60's throw back kinda thing but its solid and the bios seems steady and reliable.

Hope you get sorted ok

[Clunk]

I still have the trusty P5K Deluxe, that has been nothing short of excellent.

I got this with the intention of testing and then using in my main PC.

Yep, supershanks likes his gigabyte, but I must admit, I didnt fancy it.

I could try the DFI P35, or wait for X48 and DDR3 - probably the latter

[marscay]

nice review man - seems like the IX38 is for now

shame as i was bout to pull the hammer on it this week for some 3870 xfire action.

might take the performance hit on my p5k-dlx for a little longer until there's a decent X38 out there

[Clunk]

Thanks, and welcome to the forums

[D.M]

I still have the trusty P5K Deluxe, that has been nothing short of excellent.

Is this the same as the Premium, as most places are selling the Premium Black Pearl Edition?

Would you recommend this board as I know you are not always feeling that much love towards Asus boards! I have a Q6600 2.4ghz Quad Core.

Thanks again.

[Clunk]

I dont like to get bogged down with one brand, but as it happens, most of the decent boards from the last year have been Asus (in my opinion ), so that's what I've ended up with, and thats why I was looking forward to the Abit .

I'm not sure about the black pearl, probably best to have a google and see if there are any problems cropping up a lot.